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Made By Iris van Herpen: 3D Printed Dress

Iris van Herpen is a famous Dutch designer who has made a name for herself in both the fashion and tech worlds. Since 2010 she has already wowed people with her designs. By combining handcrafting couture techniques with 3D printing and laser cutting, she becomes first designer who has made a 3D printed dress. Quoting from 3ders.org page that van Herpen explained about how she has seen herself as a part of the handcrafted tradition of couture, which implies hand-made garments. She added her words that she just took the 3D printing as a sort of extension of her hand, which means that the 3D printing was a tool to produce couture. Iris van Herpen was graduated from the ArtEZ Institute of the Arts Arnhem, in which she studied fashion design. She has explored many themes in her work that were from crystalline forms, organic forms, biopiracy, magnetic reactions, etc. In her latest masterpiece, she was working with a new material called dragon skin, a high performance silicone material used primarily to simulate skin. It all seemed like she was inspired by science. That dress was made up of thousands of wave-like pieces which were laser cut and molded from a 3D printer. The pieces of that dress were coated with a silk sheet and cotton to make it more comfortable for the wearer. After she had already taken months to complete that dress, she joined the exhibition at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City to show off that dress.

This can be such an inspiring story for others and evidence that 3D printing is related to STEAM curriculum. Iris van Herpen shows one of five things in STEAM curriculum which is Science. She has collaborated with a number of scientists, architects, and tech experts to create her futuristic and innovative pieces. It can be seen that all of the amazing things starts from 3D printing.